I am here in Los Angeles with many individuals, all unique, who love Nora. We’ve come to both celebrate this amazing young woman and share our deep sorrow for her transition all at the same time. You can imagine how many feelings and emotions have converged in one place to seek solace through this process. Even those who are not here in the flesh lend their spirit to the occasion.

Within the midst of it all, what I have noticed is that we all look for our way of explaining her seeming untimely passing. We all have ideas about the whys. Why would she leave now with so much ahead of her? We reflect on the ideas of free will and destiny. We talk about the order and balance of the Universe in contrast to something that seems out of order. We reflect. We talk. We weep. We laugh. We talk deeply. We talk about nothing at all. However behind it all is a big “WHY?”

What I am coming to understand is that all our answers are correct. Whether we think it was an accident or a choice of the soul on its journey; whether we think it is karma or God’s Will; whether we find solace in believing she is in a better place or no place at all or within us all – all our answers are correct because they are our answers.

Ernest Holmes once wrote, that we can only know God through the avenue of our own consciousness. This is because God can only be to us what we feel and understand it to be. We can’t give anyone our God or take anyone else’s God away. Truth is truth to the soul that finds it right where he/she is. Truth is what we feel deeply in the heart of love. It is unique. It is individual.

So, what I know for myself as I seek the answers for my understanding of this event in the journey of life is that it is not static. I know what I know now and will continue to expand in that knowing. I will stay open to the Divine moving through me and I will listen. I will let go of what I think I know and find the answers in my questions. What I question is what I need to know most. I will sit with the questions and revelations do and will come.

Right now in this moment, I am grateful to know that this journey is that, a journey. What I am feeling today whether it is deep loss or a sense of gratitude will shift and change. The only way I can even expect to know more is if I let go and surrender.  I trust the Universe because it is Love. That is one thing I am certain of. Love will reveal all in its own time through each of us when we are ready.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita